


the one that got away

by perennial



Series: Prairie Tales [2]
Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Rotkäppchen | Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Animal Death, Blood, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, No Sexual Content, mentions of cannibalism, somehow a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:12:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6254263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't talk to strangers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the one that got away

_Be cordial_ has been the lesson drilled into her since childhood, which is why she always ends up conversing with amiable strangers while traveling when she would prefer to allocate her energy to reading.

“Do you mind trading seats?” says the gentleman. “My legs are so long, it’s rather uncomfortable for me to sit beside the rail.”

“Of course.”

“Going or coming?” he asks genially.

She lays her book on her lap—but with a finger between the pages, in case he wants to politely take the hint. “Going. I’m from Doniphan,” naming the town a few miles behind them to the west.

“Oh? What brings you upriver?”

“My grandmother is ill. I’m to care for her.”

“Nothing serious, I hope.”

“She has rather bad rheumatism and it has flared up in the heat. Painful but not life-threatening.”

“That’s a relief.” He smiles at her—a brilliant thing, white as the stars—and she returns it, less enthusiastically.

They are seated on the steamboat’s port deck. Many of the other passengers move about, strolling along the deck or stopping at the rail to watch the scenery and the river below, which shines brownish-blue beneath the summer sky. The sun glints off of the ripples of the water flowing beside them, and if she turns her head, she can watch the paddle wheel churning it into a bubbling trail. The trees along the bank stretch their green arms toward them, dappling the water and shading the boat at intervals.

She is in her white-and-cream striped dress because the starch holds up well when traveling and the light fabric does not pull so much of the sun’s heat into it, but it shows the dirt and she wishes she had worn something darker and spared herself the constant need to attend to what it touches. The breeze off the top of the water is magnified by the movement of the steamboat; out of concern that she will lose it in a gust she has removed her hat, and her copper hair shines like a new penny in the sun. She is a kind, somewhat serious young woman, graceful of movement and mind, more inclined to smile than to laugh.

His hair is graying around the temples but the rest is shiny black. He wears a giant moustache but keeps the remainder of his face clean-shaven. The rest of him is neat and well-composed: he wears a pressed gray suit with the necktie in a tidy bow, wears only a trace of cologne, and carries a stick—more for show than necessity. There is an openness to his face and a good humor in his voice that reinforces the idea that he makes friends everywhere he goes.

“George Lupo,” he tells her, with a bow of his head. “I like to know my neighbors.”

“Evelyn Reed,” she says, rather unwillingly. She is habitually cautious around men, all men, regardless of age or attitude—an inner voice constantly at war with its converse, that scolds her not to be so suspicious all the time.

“I won’t interrupt your reading.”

“Oh, no,” she says, because the other lesson of her youth was to put others first. “I don’t mind at all.” And really it is her own fault after that, she knows—but now she has remembered that she likes people, and the world is filled with such a lovely variety of them. Besides which, after all—cordiality or selflessness, what it all comes down to is kindness, and her heart knows that to rebuff him would be deeply unkind, and even if she thinks herself justified at the time and goes on to read for the rest of the trip she will be miserable over her own self-importance when recollecting it later. So she spares a little sweetness.

“What’s the title?”

 _Tess_ , she shows him. He knows other works by the author. She thinks: there, see? You always like a good chat about books.

He talks loudly and confidently, with broad gestures and flashing eyes. He can take her smallest remark and expand it into a full point of discussion. Not only that, but he makes it an _interesting_ point of discussion; he is a natural entertainer, and has seen a great deal of the world. He speaks to her as though they are well known to each other, and she cannot help telling him more about herself as their conversation continues.

He returns to her purpose for traveling. A reproving look enters his eyes. “No chaperone?”

“It is only a few hours’ journey.”

He frowns. “It’s not safe for young ladies to be off by themselves. I wonder what your parents were thinking.”

“They hardly thought of it at all. I make the trip often; we all do.”

Attempting to bridge the gap she has created through her own reticence, she opens the box at her feet and offers him a honey-brushed buckwheat scone. “I’m bringing these to my grandmother, but she won’t miss one.”

He accepts, and bites; his eyes widen in surprise as he chews. Swallowing, he tells her, “This may be the best scone I’ve ever eaten.”

“Thank you.”

His brows shoot up. “Yours?”

“I hail from a long line of bakers. That’s why we live such a distance from my grandmother—my father brought my mother downriver when they married, because his business was already established in town. He taught his children everything he knows. I’ll take over when he retires.”

“Well, this was mighty tasty, and I thank you. I had girded myself to miss my luncheon today.”

She smiles.

Soon enough the cruise is over. The steamer docks briefly at Cedar Dell, a small but busy mill town nestled into the wooded hills beyond the riverfront. She disembarks; his destination is much further up the river, and he does not expect to arrive there before sunset.

“Do stop by if you’re ever in the neighborhood.”

He doffs his hat and shows her a broad white grin. “I will at that. Might even invite myself over for supper.”

Then all her attention turns to the collection of her bags and retrieval of her trunk, and the payment to the porter and the hiring of a wagon, and unsurprisingly by the time the steamboat is pulling back out into the middle of the river she has completely forgotten her traveling companion.

 

The water moves swiftly past the white wooden hull. He tips his straw hat forward to shade his eyes. An observer might notice he is now a much more controlled figure than the ebullient showman of the morning. In his eyes there is a hint of something unsettlingly expectant.

The next town is a half an hour upriver. He disembarks. Instead of a trunk to retrieve, he collects two slatted crates, within which shadows move. He waits until the steamboat pulls out and the bustle of the port dies down before opening them. Two sleek shapes glide out and nuzzle at his palms.

The only road connecting him and Cedar Dell follows the winding river. With the surety born of familiarity, he plunges into the trees. A rapid trek through the woods takes him to the hills that skirt the busy sawmill.

He crosses over a slope and looks down the hill at a small, isolated cottage. The spot is peaceful; early afternoon sun attempts entry though the leaves high above, and unseen birds chirp within the shelter the branches offer. There is no sign of recent disturbance.

He steps forward, and his pair of shadows follow.

-o-

She might have walked faster than the wagon.

Their pace cannot be blamed on the vehicle, however, nor on the beast pulling it or the aptitude of the driver. The road is cut into the steep hills, and it is full of twists and turns that would turn even the sturdiest stomach queasy. She might have gone ahead of her trunk, but she does not trust strangers to deliver it in the same state in which it was entrusted to them. Until five years ago she was always met at the dock by the wide, friendly smile of her grandfather, and she misses him now as much for the dependability he provided as for the pleasure he infused in the uncomfortable ride back to the cottage.

No one is waiting to greet her at the cottage door. The driver unloads her trunk and trundles off. She drags it into the little house, frowning in confusion. The room within is completely dark. No fire glows in the hearth; the curtains are drawn; even the afternoon light from the open doorway does not serve to illuminate, as the sunshine is cut off by thick treetops.

“Hello? Gran?”

“Over here, Evie,” comes a croak from the bed. Her voice sounds awful—like there is gravel in her throat, or rasping steel rods like those Evelyn saw as she passed the lumber mill.

“Oh, Gran! Are you ill?”

“Just a head cold, dear. No, don’t light the lamp, it hurts my eyes so. How was your journey?”

“Nothing eventful. How can I make you comfortable?”

“Well, I’m so cold, but I can’t bear any light from fire, it flickers and makes me dizzy. Won’t you come into the bed here and warm me?”

“Of course.”

First she goes to the bureau and pulls out a large quilt. Carrying it to the bed, she leans against the side to spread it wide. In the dim light from the window, she can just see her grandmother’s fingertips, curled around the hem of her blankets where they are clutched to her neck. They are twice their usual size, and she deeply regrets not getting here sooner: the rheumatic flare-up is even worse than her grandmother let on.

“Oh, Gran. Your poor hands. Let me get you something for the swelling. Are you hungry?”

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

She goes to the pantry where a salve is stored somewhere in its dark depths. Finding potatoes and carrots there, she pulls them out to soften and mash. To boil water will require a fire; perhaps she can make a curtain around the bed to block the light. She thinks, Gran has never called me sweetheart in all my life.

She replaces the vegetables and stands slowly. Going to the table, she blocks her actions with her body—but after a moment her shaking fingers manage to light the lamp, and she picks it up and whirls. The cabin is suddenly full of burning light and deep shadows.

Only the lower half of the face in the bed is visible, but it is enough. Her heart goes cold. She knows those teeth.

“ _Is_ your heart sweet, Miss Reed?”

-o-

The town of Cedar Dell had grown up around the sawmill. Business was good, and where there was good business there were people wanting work, and where there was work to be had there was money to be spent; and so it followed that when the lumber company acquired the acres of woodland choked with timber, the millhands appeared soon after, with the merchants in their wake.

The mill sits in a bowl in the woodland bluffs alongside a thin estuary on its way to meet the larger waterway. The logging camps send their harvest to the mill by way of water or wagon, and it suits everyone just fine to keep the camps at a distance: it means the steep green hills around the mill itself remain untouched, and with all that green edging and the rivers running past, it is a rather picturesque place, especially when the sun sweeps over the ridge and bathes everything in gold. Now, however, the sun is sinking, and has sent up one last flare of orange before surrendering for the night.

The mill deck overseer says, “Evenin’, Mr. Trace.”

“See you in the morning, boss.”

The overseer steps out of the sawmill office and lights a pipe. He tips his hat to the women outside the saloon and waves away an invitation to join a group of millwrights looking for a fourth at poker. He bids a good evening to all those he passes, who hail him as they would a familiar and well-regarded figure. Even from a distance they know him for his pipe, which he smokes once every day on his walk home.

Dan Birch is a tall man, strong and lean, with skin tanned and brown hair lightened by hours laboring under the sun, and a plain-featured face that becomes handsome when he speaks. He has been with the Ozark Lumber Company since joining up at the age of nineteen, and eleven years of hard work and natural aptitude have seen him ascend from chain puller to trimmerman to sawyer to overseer. He rarely speaks until spoken to unless relaying orders. In the hills outside the town he has built a cabin for one. For all his reticence, he is known to be a man of good humor, fairness, and steadiness.

He climbs the sloping footpath into the shady forest. Here beneath the trees it is almost night; the burning sunset does not puncture the canopy. His walk is the unhurried walk of a man who has spent the day’s allotment of energy worthily and now seeks nothing but the peace of his pipe and a hot meal before falling into bed to restore himself for the morrow’s labor.

Climbing the path to his cabin, he frowns at the sight of old lady Lind’s cottage, some distance ahead. The house stands strangely dark in the twilight. He chopped firewood for her only two days ago; she cannot have used even half if it were she building bonfires every hour. Thoughts of his empty stomach and tired limbs are momentarily dismissed while he takes a detour.

“Miz Lind, you in there?”

Silence.

“Miz Lind, you alright?”

He opens the door.

At the sight that greets him, he has to close his eyes and breathe hard through his nose.

In eleven years Dan Birch has seen many tragedies in his time on the line. He has seen saws separate men from their fingers, hands, feet, arms, legs. He once saw a great oak come crashing down on an unfortunate soul who had not heard the cry of _timber_. He has seen newly hewn poles break loose from their fastenings and carry the nearest men with them into their path of sweeping devastation. He has seen friends fall ill, disagreements turn violent, bar fights turn into shootouts.

But never anything like this.

-o-

Her skin feels like it is on fire.

She had tried to run when she realized what he really was, but he was out of the bed and across the room in two bounds. He held a long butcher’s knife and laughed every time he swung it. It had left slices on her arms that she hardly felt, until the stinging started and did not stop.

They stumble through the woods, the gathering night making it difficult to find their footing. He goes ahead; his pair of wolves steal through the darkness like wraiths, snapping at their heels if they flag.

He had played with her as a cat toys with its prey, his eyes bright with the game. His smile grew wider as her terror increased. He had chased her around the cottage for a long time before bringing the game to a close, plying his knife, content to maim her, driving her into a terrified sobbing frenzy. Her only object had been to escape. She would have fought harder if she had known what would come next.

He holds them without a single rope or fetter; the bonds are invisible ones. “Run away,” he told Evelyn while sharpening his knife in the cottage, “scream, shout for help, pull a weapon on me, and I will shoot her brains out without a moment’s hesitation.” He smiled beatifically at her wide-eyed grandmother, whom he had just pulled out from where he had concealed her under the bed. “And the same goes for you, madam.”

Her grandmother pants beside her. She is a tiny woman, the top of her snow-white head barely coming to her granddaughter’s shoulder. There is not a mark on her, but they proceed in equal agony; her rheumatism makes it almost impossible to walk.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she had said to Evelyn when he untied her gag, as though she could have stopped any of this from happening.

“Not a sound,” Lupo had said then, lowering the knife to Evelyn’s arm. He made more slices all over her body, thin lines across her arms and legs, cutting through the fabric of her stomach and back, weakening her, making her hurt too much to run or fight. Her crisp white dress is now mottled red and ragged.

Evelyn clutches her left hand with her right one, trying to staunch the blood with her skirt. She knows they are walking toward destruction, but they are still alive, and while that is the case they still have a chance to escape. Only, the flare of pain radiating up from her hand, coupled with her desperation, serves to muddle her mind. She can hardly think to plan.

He had picked up her dominant hand and examined it. “Baker’s fingers,” he said, “strong and lean,” and cut a single line down the soft side of each one.

When they left the cottage he had carefully closed the door behind them, as though he were a guest leaving the home of his host, tidily shutting away the sight of her blood painting the walls and wreckage.

-o-

Dan Birch goes swiftly to the log pile by the side of the house and retrieves the axe embedded in a stump there. Returning to the front door, he enters cautiously, standing outside the doorway until he is sure no one lingers in the shadows with intent to attack. Still, he goes in and looks everywhere anyway, shining his lantern into the gaping pantry, pulling back the bedclothes that are in disarray to make sure no form huddles beneath.

The hut is small and simple, stingy in its offering of hiding places. All is silent. No one is within.

He stands there for a moment and thinks hard. Then he takes his lantern and begins systematically searching the ground outside the door for a blood trail.

-o-

It is full dark now. Somewhere above the canopy of leaves the stars are shining, scattered like diamonds in a peaceful sky beside the moon glowing white and serene.

They sit in the mouth of a cave. It is not a real cave, just a hollow formed by rocks falling off the bluff a hundred years before, but it serves his purposes. It hides his actions; it will muffle the noise.

He has built a pretty fire and now he is assisting the transformation of a log into red-hot coals. The blood on Evelyn’s face has dried, though other cuts continue to seep and reopen every time she moves. She is trying not to move. She is trying to plan. She is trying to think of any possible way she can get her grandmother to safety, and she is failing.

“I am going to eat your arm for supper,” Lupo tells her conversationally. “Then your other arm tomorrow. Don’t worry: you’ll bleed a great deal, but it won’t kill you. I am a surgeon. I’ll cut off both arms while you’re still alive, to keep the rest of you fresh. Those are the only parts of you that can be spared in order for you to keep walking, I’m afraid, so then I shall have to kill you and smoke the rest of you into jerky.”

Evelyn turns and vomits without fanfare into the grass behind her.

“How much do you know about slaughtering animals, Miss Reed? Baker’s daughter, I know, but I am giving you the benefit of the doubt.”

She breathes hard and glares at him.

“The rule of thumb is to keep the animal calm. Cut its throat before it even knows what is happening. If it is aware of its imminent death, fear floods the blood, makes the muscle tough, flavors it. The best meat, they say, comes from a happy death.” He shows her his teeth. “But I like to taste it, Miss Reed.”

“However,” he continues, standing now, “I can’t have you fighting back, either. So if you’ll be so obliging—?” He shows her a small bottle labeled _chloroform_. “Breathe in,” he instructs, after he has ripped off the hem of her skirt and poured the liquid on it, holding the rag up to her face.

She tears the cloth out of his hands and throws it into the heart of the fire, then lunges for the bottle and manages to empty it into the dirt before he can grab it from her. He draws his empty hand back and brings it down hard against her head. The world turns into a series of sunbursts, then goes briefly dark, then returns unchanged.

“That was stupid of you,” he says, his eyes dark with anger. “It was in your best interest, you know. This is going to be very painful, and you might have been spared the experience.” The fire throws harsh, shifting shadows over his face. “That isn’t to say _I_ won’t enjoy it.”

She fights him, but he is far stronger. He pushes her down, holding her by her throat. The knife is in his other hand.

He starts to cut into her flesh, right at the hollow above her armpit where her right arm meets her shoulder, and the pain of it is blinding. She screams and writhes away from him. He tries to gain a better grip on her.

“Hold _still_ ,” he rages.

The pair of wolves, who have been watching the proceedings from the cave entry, suddenly straighten and cock their heads, ears perked toward a noise outside.

He catches the movement. “Go,” he orders them, panting, sweating, hair disheveled. He is a far cry from the dapper gentleman who approached her on the riverboat.

Evelyn’s eyes fall on his gun, forgotten on the other side of the fire. “ _Go_ ,” she screams to her grandmother, and uses all her remaining strength to thrust her body up and unbalance him, using his weight against him to make him fall toward the fire.

Only his shoulder lands in the coals, but it is enough to make him release her with a cry. She scrambles across the cave floor to the other side of the fire. He is on his feet in an instant, lunging toward her.

She twists, the shotgun in her shaking hands, and fires it directly into his stomach.

He clutches his gut, stunned. She staggers to her feet and runs out of the cave, looking for the gleam of white hair that denotes her grandmother. After a few feet, she runs into a tree, then trips over a fallen log. After the brightness of the fire, she can hardly see.

He is screaming now, hoarse, wordless sounds of rage. He gets louder as he comes to the mouth of the cave, blood staining the lower half of his shirt, his hands black with it.

She runs, and he follows.

-o-

Dan Birch did not expect wolves.

He has encountered them before, of course—bears and mountain lions too, the Ozarks are full of them—but never such a focused attack. They are upon him almost before he realizes they are there.

He is hidden on a slope, wholly concentrated on the cave, by whose light he can see seated figures. Then, gliding through the woods like sharks in a dark sea, they appear: masters of their craft, exquisitely formed for the purpose. The glitter of eyes, a faint panting is all the warning he is given.

He hefts his axe and grips the bowie knife he always carries on his hip. He braces himself both physically and mentally. He knows the battle will be painful, and bloody, and the victor is not a foregone conclusion. He has fought off wild animals before, but never alone, and he is outnumbered.

They are everywhere. They are nowhere.

They are lunging for his throat with teeth like knives. They are tearing at his skin and clothes. They are circling him, attacking from both sides, keeping him exposed, driving him where they want him, shrewd and merciless.

He holds them at bay for a while, suffering some painful bites but nothing damaging. He is growing tired.

One clamps down on the wrist that holds the axe and he drops it with a yell. Out of instinct more than purpose he swings the knife around and buries it to the hilt into the shoulder of the beast. It falls away with a whine.

He lurches forward, trying to get beyond the reach of teeth of the second wolf. His axe is lost and his knife is gone. He cannot see to pull a weapon from nature. All he needs is a sharp rock or heavy branch, but the other wolf is too close, it is too dark, there is no time.

-o-

Evelyn runs through the moonlight. Sight has returned to her dilated eyes, allowing her to know two things: how close her captor is behind her, and that she holds a two-cylinder shotgun. She stumbles up an incline. The dirt and rocks crumble under her feet, and she slides backwards, grabbing futilely for a branch or a rock or _anything_ —

His hand closes around her wrist.

They fight for the gun, hunter gripping the barrel with both hands, hunted clinging to the butt with all her might. He tries to shake her off, but the injury to his stomach keeps him from a full range of motion.

She holds tight and prays incoherently and watches for her chance, and it comes. He swings the end of the barrel too close to his jaw, and she pulls the trigger.

He staggers back, four full steps before falling.

She can hear his breathing, an inhuman rattling sound. Gurgling as the blood collects in his throat. Leaves stirring as he tries to move his arms. Somehow he is not dead. How can he not be dead? She will have to go back for his knife.

She stumbles over something in the darkness—something solid and heavy, not a tree branch. When she picks it up, she can see the shining edge of an axe head.

-o-

Mrs. Lind sits quietly, because there is little else she can do.

She managed to get out of the cave and up the hill a bit, and she saw the fireside fight between her granddaughter and the demon who brought them here. They ran away into the dark too quickly for her to follow. Anyhow, she could not move now if her life depended on it.

She can hear them in the distance—shouts and cries and the noise of a struggle. And then, a gunshot, and silence. She waits, ears keen to know who stands victor. She has looked on death with friendly eyes for some years now, but it would grieve her deeply to lose her granddaughter like this.

From behind her: a thrashing through the undergrowth. There is the sound of a struggle for breath, human breath. It is not the guttural breath of the demon. She looks up in surprise as the silhouette of another man stumbles down the slope.

“Miz Lind?” exclaims the shape. His voice is familiar, but she cannot place it. “Miz Lind—you gotta run—I can’t hold it off much longer.”

A streak of grey and white flashes in her peripheral vision. “What was that?” she cries. “A ghost?”

“Worse, ma’am,” says the man grimly, and a moment later it is upon them.

The wolf launches itself onto the man, snapping wildly at his face, his throat, any flesh it can reach. He staggers under its weight, wheeling backwards.

The light is a little better here, with a break in the trees above them letting a little moonlight in. There is a tall, sturdy oak just a few meters down the hill. It is a chance, and perhaps the only one left.

Using their momentum and the force of gravity, he hurls them against the trunk so that the wolf’s back comes in full contact with the trunk. It hits it with a thud and goes limp. His hands move fast, pushing the head back, breaking the neck. The body drops to the ground and does not move again.

The lumberman helps Mrs. Lind up. In the dim light she can finally make out his face.

“Oh, hello, Daniel. Thank you for saving our lives.”

“You ain’t saved yet, Miz Lind. He’s still out there.”

“I meant just now, from the wolf.”

“Do you know which way they went, ma’am?”

“That way. But first, Daniel, take this. I don’t like to touch it.” And she hands him the butcher knife that she retrieved from the cave after the other two had gone.

-o-

Even when he is clearly dead, the axe embedded deep in his throat, she keeps hacking at his neck, because she knows, she knows she will ask in the darkest hour of the night if she is absolutely sure. She will spend the rest of her life wondering if somehow he might have survived and if she will come home one day to find him waiting in the shadows, so she hacks and hacks until she is covered with his blood and his head is separated from his body and she finally heaves one final breath and drops her hands to her sides.

She has been shaking since fighting him off by the fire, but now violent tremors sweep through her body. For a little while she has to consciously take every breath in, let every breath out.

Somewhere to her right, beyond the body, footsteps approach. She watches the shadows move until the glowing head of her grandmother steps into the moonlight. Behind her emerges the figure of a man. A stranger. This morning she would have said he had an honest face. He has blood on his shirt, but it is hard to tell if it first belonged to him.

The lumberman takes in the scene, the things on the ground, the woman standing over them.

“It’s alright now. It’s over. You’re safe,” he says, somehow knowing that he should stay where he stands. Her grandmother steps forward and quietly slides the axe out of her grasp. Evelyn's hands hang limply by her sides.

The man stretches out his hands to her. She stares at them. They are covered in blood, stained so red it is hard to imagine they will ever wash clean.

“My name’s Dan Birch,” he says, reaching for her but not moving. “I work at the sawmill down there. We’re going to go down to the town and tell someone what happened here. And fix up your arm and get you both cleaned up. Find you somewhere safe to sleep. But you have to come with me now, can you do that?”

He slowly circles around so that he and she stand on the same side of the body, though he maintains his distance.

“What’s your name? What’s her name?”

Mrs. Lind says, “Evelyn. Evie.”

“Miss Evelyn, will you come with me and your grandmother? You come with us now. We’re going where it’s safe.”

An irrational fear seizes her. She should not leave the body. Anything might happen while they are not there to guard it—someone might take it away and heal it.

A breath in, breath out. She looks at the body and the head and remembers why she did what she did, and is comforted enough to step toward Dan Birch and lay her blood-slick hand in his matching one.

-o-

The mill deck overseer says, “Evenin’, Mr. Trace.”

“See you in the morning, boss.”

Dan Birch bids a good evening to all those he passes, but he does not smoke a pipe, nor does he walk his regular route down the dirt street that leads toward the hillside where his cabin is nestled. Instead he turns his feet toward Cedar Dell’s lone medical clinic.

Mrs. Lind is dozing in a chair in the corner. Her granddaughter is in the bed beside the window, looking out at the sunset: a chaos of colors tonight, all the more beautiful for its impermanence.

Her smile is brief, cautious.

“I brought a book,” he says, presenting his offering. “It’s just _Crusoe_. Thought you might be bored.”

“Thank you. I am.”

A pause, while he takes in the sight of her gauze-enclosed hands.

“I’m sorry. Thoughtless of me.”

She says, “Please don’t apologize. I appreciate the gesture. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to read some of it aloud?”

He shifts uncomfortably.

She says quickly, “I understand if you haven’t the time.”

“No, no. Just don’t, don’t expect, you know, the talents of Cicero.” He scratches his jaw.

She smiles—a little more genuine, this time. “I won’t.”

He comes back the next night, and the night after that, and the next. Every time he walks through the door her smile comes a little more easily, until he thinks perhaps she might be glad to see him, until he is certain of it.

-o-

He is in the middle of sentence when he glances up and realizes she is not listening. Her eyes are distant. A troubled frown creases her forehead.

He lays his hand over hers. She starts, and he removes it.

“Okay?” he says.

“Yes. No. I was just… remembering.”

“Doc says you gotta stop dwelling on it. Only makes the nightmares worse.”

She looks out the window. They have the room to themselves; Mrs. Lind is supping with the doctor’s family.

She bursts, “Are men like this, hiding their true natures, are they horrible, are they full of evil secrets?”

“No,” he says. “And yes.”

-o-

“What do you know about him?” she asks her grandmother.

“Not much,” says Mrs. Lind. “Except that he makes me want to be kind.”

Evelyn smiles at her. “You’re already kind, Gran.”

“You know what I mean,” says Mrs. Lind, and she does.

-o-

Dan arrives one afternoon to an empty clinic. They left, is all the doctor can tell him, “Just up and left.”

As he makes his way up the hillside, raised voices float down to him from the little cottage. Coming closer, he realizes his error—it is only one voice.

They are outside. Evelyn is a picture of frustration, pleading with her audience. She is free of gauze, now, but the cuts are still healing, and the scars will be numerous. She paces before her grandmother, who is tranquilly knitting on a low stool, her back against the doorframe.

At the sight of his face, relief washes over hers. “Oh, thank the Lord. Maybe you can make her see reason.”

“Lovely afternoon, Daniel,” Mrs. Lind greets him.

“She said her flare is cured and took off for the hills, and now she won’t budge.”

Mrs. Lind, mildly—“That doctor is a very intelligent fellow. His wife is about to have a baby, did you know? I’m making a swaddling blanket.”

“Gran, _please_ come home with me.”

Dan’s eyes jerk to Evelyn’s face. “You’re leaving?”

“I _am_ home. Your grandfather built this house for me. I have no intention of abandoning it.”

Evelyn turns desperate eyes on Dan.

He crouches before the old woman and says gently, “Miz Lind, it reeks of blood in there. You’ll never get it clean.”

“Yes, but it’s Evie’s blood, and she’s alive, so I don’t mind.”

“Gran,” Evelyn pleads, distressed. She tries a different tack. “Gran, the valley isn’t safe.”

Dan tells them, “Your attacker wasn’t a local. Safe to say he was just passing through.”

She will not be deterred. “Lunatics are everywhere. But home is busy, there’s always someone around, you can’t get cornered by some madman and carried off. You’re never alone.”

“Gracious,” Mrs. Lind says, her hands pausing. “It sounds miserable.”

“Nonsense. You’d thrive there.” It is not untrue.

“Well, I want to stay here,” she says cheerfully, hands moving deftly.

“You’ll die in this house!”

“Yes, that is the idea.”

Evelyn groans.

Dan says, “I can keep an eye out for your grandmother.”

“There is no need for that, Daniel. You have more than enough other responsibilities to concern you.” Mrs. Lind tells her granddaughter, “If you want to worry over me, you’ll have to live here and do it. I’m not leaving.”

“Gran, I _can’t_. The bakery—”

“Oh, and I’m sure no one here has ever longed for baked goods.” She looks pointedly at the mill overseer. He admits there are times he would willingly give his week’s wages for one of his mother’s apple pies.

Evelyn makes a noise; it sounds like _Hm_. She looks out over the sloping hill, hands on her waist, brow creased. The sun drenches her hair rose-gold and the breeze tousles it as it passes by. Her dress is spring green. She might have grown out of these woods, stepped out of the trees as though birthed by them.

She says, “That doesn’t change the fact that the house is uninhabitable.”

Mrs. Lind says meaningfully, “In my day we were taught how to properly clean a house,” which sets her granddaughter off long enough to finish three rows without interruption.

Perhaps if they hadn’t been squalling so loudly, he wouldn’t have said it, but he does.

“I’ll build you a new house, Miz Lind.”

They both stop, turn to stare.

“We’ll have to knock this one down, but I’ll build you the exact same one, right here. Same house exactly. Maybe a little bigger. Room to grow,” he says, looking at Evelyn.

She looks back, blushing.

“Might take a little time,” he says, heart as high as the sun. “What with the mill. A few months, maybe.”

“That sounds just right,” says Mrs. Lind, who is watching her granddaughter and looking well pleased.

“And in the meantime?”

The doctor offered his spare room, it is revealed—so long as they might be willing to assist with the day to day of the clinic and a household of five, seeing as his wife and assistant will be bedbound soon.

And if they get tired of that, Dan adds, unwilling to let the next best option be Doniphan, they are welcome to the use of his cabin; there is a spare bed in his office that it would be no trial for him to shift himself to using, and besides, soon enough he’ll be camping out at the site of the new cottage.

Evelyn links her arm around his elbow. They walk slowly down the hillside back to the town.

She asks him to stay for supper, and he does.

**Author's Note:**

>  _‘Moral: Children, especially attractive, well bed young ladies, should never talk to strangers, for if they should do so, they may well provide dinner for a wolf. I say “wolf,” but there are various kinds of wolves. There are also those who are charming, quiet, polite, unassuming, complacent, sweet, who pursue young women at home and in the streets. And unfortunately, it is these gentle wolves who are the most dangerous ones of all.’ —Charles Perrault_  
>     
> clearly perrault was talking about a different kind if predator than the characterization that i chose for this villain—but abandoning the moral for a straight adaptation provided its own level of ick.


End file.
